The present invention relates to means for setting up a honing process and more particularly, to improved means for establishing, setting and monitoring operating conditions for a honing machine from workpiece parameters and stored data.
There are in existance various devices for honing surfaces such as cylindrical surfaces and for the most part such devices are primarily mechanical devices which require considerable and constant operator attention and the quality of the work performed depends substantially upon the skill and experience of the operator. For example, an operator influences the honing process with known prior devices by, among other things, installing and removing parts to be honed, selecting a desired honing assembly or mandrel and setting in the desired honing stone travel, stroking motion and frequency, mandrel operating speed or RPM, the conditions for terminating a honing operation and in some cases the desired torque to be established and maintained to produce a desired stock removal rate taking into account the possibility for damage to the honing machine and to the stones and mandrels. The known devices therefore require considerable operator attention and experience during set up and during the honing operation. Other conditions must also be taken into account to properly set up and hone a workpiece. Such conditions include the selection of the machine components, the characteristics and hardness of work pieces to be honed, the amount of material to be removed, the type and size of mandrel to be used and its range of adjustment, the selection of a suitable abrasive material and related matters. The skill of the persons required for set up and for operating procedures and the amount of operator attention and experience required contribute substantially to the cost of honing and to the accuracy and uniformity of the parts produced.
Numerically controlled (NC) machine tools of various types have been used for many years and for many purposes. More recently computer numerically controlled (CNC) machine tools have also become widely used. Many of these devices have employed adaptive control means in the nature of a feedback control for changing certain machine parameters to compensate for changed conditions and to improve machine operation. NC and CNC machines generally require manufacturing and/or NC engineers to program into the machine the various machine parameters, and in the past this has often involved using handbook data and/or operator or programmer experience to make the machine perform the required functions on a specified workpiece. The data inputs thus produced are stored on punched tape, magnetic or non-volitile memories and related devices and are retained in a library for call up and use as required.
The current manufacturing environment is calling for ever smaller production lot sizes as industry moves toward Just-In-Time (JIT) manufacturing. Also, with today's rapidly changing technology, obsolescence of manufactured parts makes large lot sizes and therefore large inventories costly to maintain and generally undesireable. These and other factors place a heavy burden on manufacturing overhead especially in the areas of NC and CNC engineering support.